


Islands, Maybe Boats?

by malheureux



Series: Lidocaine [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Experimental Style, Gen, M/M, Other, Rating may increase as chapters progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:57:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4264029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malheureux/pseuds/malheureux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story that begins with Raleigh Becket and ends with Chuck Hansen each moving through the world away from each other, never to meet, at least, until they collide at the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

This is a story that begins in the same innocuous way many do; a hero fallen from grace who, through inconceivable odds, rises again to save the world. 

Raleigh Becket isn’t a hero fallen from grace, he’s a sailor thrown from his ship into a tumultuous ocean; lungs gasping for air, limbs flailing wildly. Raleigh Becket was well-intentioned yet, reckless and it cost him everything. 

Raleigh Becket isn’t a hero but he could be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm using this as an outlet to experiment with my writing style as I am finishing up my degree and will be released into the real world soon enough. Any mistakes are my own.

Raleigh Becket was a dreamer. He was the middle child and he could be a pain with his trusty telescope - no, no, no. 

That’s not quite right.

There once was a boy with shaggy blonde hair running, running on the beach hands reaching forward forward to a plastic bag carried by a particularly strong gust of wind out out of his little sister’s hand. The wind changed direction and he craned his head to follow the bag’s movement up up up almost eclipsing the sun. A halo around the sun like a rainbow told him that there would be a storm later in the day and he smiled at the warmth on his face. 

There would be many days like this. 

\----------

Yancy Becket was the protectorate of their fractured family. He was the beacon of hope in an uncertain night who - no, no, no. 

That’s also not quite right. 

There once were two boys with varying lengths of shaggy blonde hair running, running on the beach. The younger was running arms outstretched towards a plastic bag. The eldest had slowed to allow their younger sister to catch up to him interlacing their hands, speaking candidly to her in their mother’s tongue. His sister’s hand was sticky with the watermelon they had for lunch. The sand was warm beneath his bare feet but the wind tested his cable-knit sweater. The sharp air told of a storm later in the day and he lifted his sister up up up onto his shoulders as his younger brother grabbed at his sleeves. 

This was the last day like this. 

\----------

There once was a man named Raleigh Becket who couldn’t separate his childhood from his brother Yancy’s, but they were good weren’t they? They could do what others only could dream of. They were each other’s perfect half or were they? It was hard to tell anymore because this was all they knew now. 

They knew they were synchronized mind, body, and soul long after they were physically apart. 

\----------

Raleigh Becket is his name and he is safe, hooked up to machines that breathe for him while he cannot. They measure his pulse, his brainwaves, the oxygen in his blood letting him know that he is in fact alive, contrary to the searing light behind his eyes, and the ghosts in his gray matter. 

Yancy Becket is dead and he is not safe. Raleigh listen to me, Raleigh listen to me, Raleigh listen to me, Raleigh listen to me, Raleigh listen to me, Raleigh listen to, Raleigh listen, Raleigh, Raleigh, Raleigh. 

\----------

He had a sister, oh yes, a darling little thing who would’ve followed him to the ends of the earth if only they had the time. 

If only he could still see her face.


	3. Chapter 3

There once was a young man with a dust covered face, a younger girl clutching his hand so hard it was guaranteed to bruise, running through a quickly disintegrating parking garage in hopes of not being crushed by the rubble. 

He could not tell who he was. 

With the memory of heaving his sister into his brother’s arms as he tried to lead him through the quickly disintegrating streets towards the emergency shelter at the AMTRAK station; he could’ve been Yancy. 

With the memory of a his sister in a hospital, hooked up to innumerable machines, fighting against the prehensile poison blue circuit board crawling up her neck; he could’ve been Raleigh. 

He wasn’t sure. 

He wasn’t sure. 

He wasn’t sure, until they started asking questions.  
He couldn’t focus his eyes for a long enough period of time before the faces of his doctor’s turned into various family members and weirdly, the cast from Saturday Night Live circa 1993-1998. He couldn’t focus long enough to answer the questions they asked. 

What is your name? Raleigh Becket is what he answers aloud silently adding ‘possible Yancy?’  
What year is it? he shrugs  
Who is the President? he shrugs  
Do you know where you are? “the hospital,” he offers tentatively. 

They mumble about him as if he weren’t three feet away from them, immobile. 

He thinks he can feel a hand on his shoulder but when he shifts his head to look there isn’t a hand, rather, he sees a small copper pool of blood and fluid settling where his brother’s hand should be. 

Raleigh listen to me

“Where is my brother?” the man asks in a voice so unlike his own, tentative and scared, “Where is Yancy?” 

In an instant all eyes were on him but he felt them focusing on his shoulder. He sees mouths moving and hands lunging forward toward him but hears nothing. 

“Where is Yancy? Why isn’t he with me? Is he okay? Is he okay?” a litany of questions drop from his chapped lips as the antiseptic white of his hospital room fades into the steel blue tendrils of his memory. 

In memory, Raleigh-maybe-Yancy, finds himself with constellations for limbs stitched into the night sky for others to point and assign meaning to; he finds his memories perforated by sharp teeth and claws; he finds his brother’s hand on his shoulder in a permanent vice grip seared into his arm leaving behind the shared same circuit board of the youngest Becket sibling. He floats from one memory to another deciding to let them wash over him instead of picking out which one he actually remembers versus seeing through the eyes of his brother, through seeing through the eyes of Yancy. 

His name is Raleigh Becket and he is alive. His brother's name is Yancy Becket and he is dead. These truths liquefy once he wakes, once he feels the weight of the world on his own.

Outside, in quiet observation, a boy a sliver younger than sixteen waits patiently for his turn. His turn to offer condolences and solidarity will never come.


End file.
